Jo'Bril was the most enthusiastic of the small number of scientists present, awed by being able to observe the solar plasma reactions, but this was later discovered to be a ruse. Jo'Bril piloted the shuttlecraftJustman on a test of the shielding and sabotaged the Enterprise-D sensors in order to make it appear as if the shielding failed and Jo'Bril had died. Takaran physiology was extremely resilient, and Dr. Beverly Crusher found it unlikely that the shield problems could have killed Jo'Bril.

Jo'Bril had actually placed himself in a hibernation state that resembled death. After he was revived, Jo'Bril murdered Reyga and made it appear as if the Ferengi had committed suicide, to further discredit his work. When Beverly determined that the failure of the metaphasic shield was the result of sabotage, she took the Justman out to test it once again, not knowing Jo'Bril was alive and had stowed away aboard the shuttle. He attempted to hijack the shuttle and take it back to Takara for development into a weapon, but was foiled when Beverly overpowered him in a brief struggle for control of the shuttle. Jo'Bril was killed via vaporization when Beverly shot him with a phaser set to maximum. (TNG: "Suspicions")